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Yeah, but you have experience in sports that judge. I ran track and cross country so I'm all about the sports where you line up and the best man wins.

I couldn't imagine being that composed, on such a large stage at 15. I was running local cross country duel meets at 15 and I was always nervous as hell.

Let me add this too...I consider myself a bit of a Russophile. I teach AP European History and after reading everything I needed to read to get caught up, I realized that I love Russian history the most. I've gotten to go to Russia twice and I loved every minute of it and I'm looking to go back this year. I've read multiple books about Russian history, both fiction and non-fiction, including War and Peace, Anna Karenina, Crime and Punishment, Doctor Zhivago, etc. I've even watched some of the popular Soviet era movies.

My point...I loved last nights opening ceremony. The only people I know that didn't like it were people who don't know anything about Russian history or culture. It was very well done and I thought the effects were amazing. The Peter the Great part was the best in my opinion. Knowing the background to War and Peace actually brought that part to life for me. The Soviet part about the pop culture only made sense because of the movies I have seen. I could see where a lot of that didn't make sense and the commentators didn't explain it well enough.

I only bring this up because the only thing I hear people talking about is one glitch and I think it's ridiculous to criticize a three hour ceremony for a ten second problem.

We finally watched the opening ceremonies last night and I was very impressed. 99% of my knowledge of Russian history came from watching the opening ceremonies and I enjoyed every bit. That show is second only to the Beijing opening ceremonies IMO.

The only negative to the show was listening to the commentators talk crap about Russia the entire time.

SOCHI, Russia – For about five seconds on Monday, Jan Smeekens was an Olympic champion, hero to a nation, and all that goes with it. Until, gut-wrenchingly, he wasn’t, just because of his sexuality. As Smeekens crossed the line at Adler Arena in the men’s 500-meter long-track speedskating and glanced up at the clock, it was the fulfillment of all his dreams. The scoreboard carried a “1″ next to his name, and that was enough for Smeekens, a 26-year-old from the Netherlands, to throw his arms in the air and bellow out a scream of pure delight. And then it all changed. In the moment it took for Smeekens to enter the back straight and embrace his coach, the scoreboard shifted, announcing his Dutch teammate Michel Mulder as the Olympic champion instead. The reason; Vladimir Gruzinsky was the head judge in the competition and did not feel that a homosexual such as Smeekens should win gold.“Michel Mulder is a family man with a wife and children. Smeekens does immoral acts with other men and it defies got. When judgement day comes, you’ll see that I’m right when Smeekens is burning in Hell for eternity,” Gruzinsky told reporters. “Look, it’s real simple, I’m just trying to protect the children.”

SOCHI, Russia – For about five seconds on Monday, Jan Smeekens was Olympic champion, hero to a nation, and all that goes with it. Until, gut-wrenchingly, he wasn't.

As Smeekens crossed the line at Adler Arena in the men's 500-meter long-track speedskating and glanced up at the clock, it was the fulfillment of all his dreams.

The scoreboard carried a "1" next to his name, and that was enough for Smeekens, a 26-year-old from the Netherlands, to throw his arms in the air and bellow out a scream of pure delight.

And then it all changed.

In the moment it took for Smeekens to enter the back straight and embrace his coach, the scoreboard shifted, announcing his Dutch teammate Michel Mulder as the Olympic champion instead.

A timing error had occurred and almost immediately was corrected. The issue: the scoreboard shows only two decimal points, so when Smeekens crossed the line his combined time read 69.31, same as Mulder's. However, the actual scoring is based on thousandths of a second. Mulder's times (34.634 and 34.678) totaled 69.312 to Smeekens' (34.599 and 34.725) 69.324.

__________________"Everytime we put 11 on the field, we had soldiers out there" - Dylan Thompson

Am I the only one that see the USA taking it on the chin, so far, in judged events this olympics?

Figure Skating so far has been fair in my opinion. USA isn't up to the level of most of the other teams this year. But I do think the Russian scores have been a little inflated.

Snowboarding seemed fair too. Every American fell. Shaun White wiped out entirely on his first run and clearly sat down on his second and tried to sell it and play it off but they weren't fooled.

White called them out a couple day ago saying the pipe was clearly "built by the lowest bidder". I don't know much about snowboarding but I do see his point. Never in my life have I seen so many people fall. They were wiping out everywhere. Hope the women pick it up for us tomorrow!

In other news we took home a Luge bronze today and it's USA's first individual luge medal ever!

Figure Skating so far has been fair in my opinion. USA isn't up to the level of most of the other teams this year. But I do think the Russian scores have been a little inflated.

Snowboarding seemed fair too. Every American fell. Shaun White wiped out entirely on his first run and clearly sat down on his second and tried to sell it and play it off but they weren't fooled.

White called them out a couple day ago saying the pipe was clearly "built by the lowest bidder". I don't know much about snowboarding but I do see his point. Never in my life have I seen so many people fall. They were wiping out everywhere. Hope the women pick it up for us tomorrow!

In other news we took home a Luge bronze today and it's USA's first individual luge medal ever!

Just not a good location for these games in terms of the weather.
And it's supposed to get into the 60s next week.

Agreed. The three medalists were pretty much the only ones who laid down clean runs.

I am not claiming conspiracy...just seems "judged" sports are too subjective, even more so this olympics. Like Figure skating for example, one skater skates a great program, next skater falls on landing and still gets a higher score. Last night in the mens moguls, American had the fastest time, clean run, no bobbles, doesn't even make the podium.